London metals trader Andrew Maguire, who warned an investigator for the
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in advance about a gold and
silver market manipulation to be undertaken by traders for JPMorgan
Chase in February and whose whistleblowing was publicized by GATA at
Thursday's CFTC hearing on metals futures trading was injured along with his wife the next day when their car was struck by a hit-and-run driver in the London area.

According to GATA's contact with Maguire, board member Adrian
Douglas, Maguire and his wife were admitted to a hospital overnight and
released today and are expected to recover fully.

Maguire told Douglas by telephone today that his car was struck by a
car careening out of a side road. When a pedestrian who witnessed the
crash tried to block the other driver's escape, the other driver
accelerated at the pedestrian, causing him to jump out of the way to
avoid being hit. The other driver's car then struck two other cars in
escaping. But the other driver was caught by police after a chase in
which police helicopters were summoned.

We'll convey more information about the incident as it becomes available.

We are in process of corroborating this story with independent sources. It will be interesting to see what information the escapee driver discloses and whether this was just a case of a little extra fish and chips and extra, extra beer. In the meantime, the battle against the big banks and the LBMA might have just gotten a little more personal.